2/8/13 12:04 PM EST

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Thursday night blasted “the far left machine” for waging a “propaganda campaign” against him over his comments earlier this week about NBC’s reporting on drones.

During a segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday, O’Reilly criticized NBC News for its reporting and said he hadn’t heard anything from the network on drones. “Why would they go crazy over waterboarding and they don’t care about drones?” O’Reilly said Wednesday.

NBC News, however, was the outlet that broke the news this week on the Justice Dept. drones memo.

On Thursday, O’Reilly addressed his comments, saying that the “far left machine” completely missed the point of his segment. "For 17 long years, these loons have been trying to marginalize me," he said.

“Now, last night, I talked with Bob Beckel about the difference in analysis on the subject of waterboarding as compared to killing people with drones, a policy that President Obama embraces," he said. "I put forth that over at NBC News and other media places, they were hysterical over waterboarding, but muted over President Obama’s drone attacks, at least until yesterday,” he said. “Immediately, the far left machine cranked up! 'O’Reilly didn’t say that NBC News broke the drone memo story. He’s a deceiver!' True! I didn’t say NBC broke the memo story because we weren’t talking about that. Waterboarding versus drone strikes.”

“So once again, we have a propaganda campaign designed to make ignorant people on the left even more ignorant. Factor tip of the day: Don't deal with loons,” he added.